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Staying Connected on the Medias

Facebook has allowed me to stay connected with so many high school friends. I remained facebook friends with my high school friends after graduation. Even people I went to high school with and wasn’t sure if we were actually friends. Did we hate each other? Were we friends? Were you my best friends ex boyfriend? Should we be facebook friends? Is that drama?

All of those answers were…who cares I’m in college 700 miles away from home now. None of my high school friends knew my college friends and vice versa. Worlds Seperated.

Then I went to college and had some of the best four years of my life. My freshman year roommate and I explored our new found college life. I fell in love with a lot of things. I entered college as a math and education major who swam and was still seeing someone from high school. I left college as a community health major who ran seeing a pilot (Tim). A lot happened and changed in those four years, none of which I regret. I, once again, met a lot of people became close, became distant and remained good friends. Each year people shifted in and out of my life.

Add that to another addition of facebook friends. After college I asked myself…will we remain close? Are we good friends? Were we good friends? Did we meet at a college rager once, never to talk again (um delete)? Were you a good friends side piece that actually I didn’t care about (also delete)? Of course I didn’t delete anyone I knew or to occasionally see what they were up too. Sometimes you know that deleting someone as your facebook friend is better.

Then I went to Oswego and worked. Once again I met a great group of people who really helped me assimilate into a college town when I was no longer a college student. The same questions applied except this time, there is no college reunion. There is no high school reunion. I would love to see my friends and I hope I do make it back up there at some point soon. (I am going to try!). But I found myself with lots of new friends, all in different areas of the country.

Then finally when in all three phases of my life, I have a completely different realm of facebookfriends that I didn’t mention. Those who live in VA Beach and run. Virginia Beach and the Tidewater Striders will always be where my heart of running lies. I love coming back to races, seeing friends and it’s where my love of running began. I’ve met so many great people from age 6 to 80 and we all share a common love: running.

Now I’m living in New Jersey and I add a fifth depth of facebook friends that don’t know each other.

So why am I even using facebook? As obnoxious as facebook is, it is allowed me to stay connected to my personal friends and see what they are up too. It wasn’t until this week when I was looking through my friends list that I realized my friends and ties are all over the country. Without my friends, I would be lost.

Social media has always been very good to me. It’s allowed me to stay connected with friends from middle and high school, college, jobs and just people I’ve met through running!

10 Comments on “Staying Connected on the Medias”

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. At first it was like an on-line reunion; I could see what became of all my high school and some university friends. I used to post a lot more there. Lately, I’ve become a bit of a lurker, and I post updates a lot less. Perhaps it’s all the noise on my news feed. I also use Google+, which right now I like more.

Early on in my time using Facebook a bunch of high school people arranged a meet-up at a local restaurant, and I went. A lot of them hadn’t changed much in 15 years; they were jerks in high school, and still are jerks now.

I’m probably one of the few people on this planet that still actually really like Facebook. I’ve been using it since 2005 – when it was just for college kids.

I mostly stay connected with college friends, only a few from high school (duhhh, you). However, now that I’m living back in my hometown, I’m finding that I’m reconnecting with more people from high school – just around town.

I think social media can be especially helpful for people to stay connected or reconnect, but I think unfortunately, people can become WAY too obsessed with it and the image they present.

I was goign to delete my facebook a while back but when I went through and looked at a lot of the conversations I have on there it’s the only way I stay in touch with a lot of the people I’ve met through the Army. Plus it’s a good time waster on slow days at work ;)

For me it was a little different because Facebook didn’t exist until my senior year of college. At that point I slowly began friending everyone I knew from high school and college. Now its a little weird because I remember more about what I know of them from Facebook than from real life. When i went to my 5 year college reunion it was really weird because I knew everything that was going on with everyone from facebook, so it felt like we had nothing to talk about!

This reminds me I need to do a Facebook friends clean-out soon. I always ask myself if I were grocery shopping (at Wegmans, obviously), and I saw this person, would I say hi? If the answer is no, then I’ll delete them.

I was just having this discussion with coworkers. I have very few FB friends, and I’m totally ok with that. lol. I have family, of course, and then I have a lot of people that I used to be close with, and we kind of just grew apart. I like to know that they are doing well and see them grow into adults, have children, get married, etc.

I hate Facebook. I use it. I have been on it since 2004 when it was brand new. I was at one of the first public universities that got it. It certainly has changed a lot. I probably clean out “friends” at least once a year. I have no need for 700 people to know what’s going on in my life nor do I want to know that about them.

I’ve stayed connected with high school & college friends through facebook (as well as family, former co-workers, and former students), but over time, I’ve come to dislike it more & more. I recently took a month long break from checking my FB, and when I finally did, I just couldn’t handle it. I’ll keep it around, but I’d much rather one of those friends pick up the phone & call or send me a text than “write on my wall.” I’ll stick to twitter & instagram for the time being.

You know what’s crazy? I’ve never had a personal Facebook account. I got one for Spoons for the extra exposure, but in ever bothered to get a personal one. I kind of regret it, though, since it would have been an awesome way to stay in touch with friends from high school, but at the same time it’s probably the form of social media I like the least.

Hollie: I'm a socially inappropriate distance runner. I enjoy drinking coffee daily and not existing in real life.

My hobbies include running, working, being socially awkward, going to NJ diners, snarking and being on the internet.

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